A
corrupted USB stick contributed to Spain's worst air disaster on
record, according to a 12,000-page report cited by the Spanish
newspaper El
Paisand
USA
Today.

It
was initially believed that the crash of Flight 5022 that killed 154
people in 2008 was the result of pilot error, but investigators have
now concluded that a computer infection spread through an infected
USB stick may have contributed to the crash.

Investigators speculate
that trojanmalware may
have slowed down system alerts at the airline's headquarters which could have canceled or delayed
the doomed flight. The report indicates that the computer
failed to detect three problems (including one issue with the airplane's wing flaps being in the incorrect position for takeoff) in a fail-safe monitoring system and
that those problems were brought on by a malicious program that came
from the USB thumb drive.

Spanair has been ordered by a
judge to provide all of the company's computer logs from the days
before and after the crash. A final report from crash
investigators is expected by December.

One expert warns that
with continued use of flash drives and other third party devices in
systems like these, this type of tragedy could happen again.

Senior
manager of security research at Arbor Networks, Jose Nazario, said
that many USB thumb
drive attacks take advantage of security weaknesses in Windows auto
run, a basic component built into the Windows operating
system.

"Think about how many USB
sticks you have. You're probably under counting. Everyone does,"
said Nazario. "Now think about how many sticks in the past
month your laptop has used, and think about how many other systems
you have used your USB sticks on. This is like those classic HIV
commercials, where you're with everyone that person has been with
before."

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